Tuesday, May 19, 2015

"They are behaving
exactly like Hyenas, these are animals that go about looking for faeces. The
MP’s ditching their parties are like Hyenas looking for fecal excreta.”

- Dr. Francis Manda (Lusaka Times. January 6, 2013)

Lately news, and indeed social media postings from the ifintu ni Lungu side of the political
pendulum, has become mentally eliciting. Just the other day, I was treated to a
picture of H.E. President Edgar Lungu in a boogie mood on arrival at Harare
International Airport, again. I grant him that. He can boogie. Reminded me of my younger days, when we would walk singing,
“I got the power” after Shupi had allowed us to simply touch her hand.

I wondered why H.E. was so boogie. Could be, he
was also remembering his younger days. But, I read he had again gone to consult
Robert.

There surely must be a new Robert around. The
Robert I know is no different from my grandmother. You see my grandmother
always has an upside down view of democratic political choices and governance. In
the January 20, 2015 presidential elections, when she heard that the incumbent
won, she rounded us up to find out who the culprit among us was.

“How could he win, when I had crossed him out?
He personally told me he had no vision, so I put a cross against his name to
show my displeasure”. What could we say? She is grandma, a very wise elderly.
Sometimes, not very different from Robert.

In case there are those who do not know who
Robert is. Robert Mugabe is that firebrand African president we so admired this
side of the world. He became president of Zimbabwe in 1987. This is one of the
very few African presidents who could tell Western world leaders to disappear
if they did not like him or how he was governing his country. The one that
talked more Karl Marx speak than Karl Marx himself. The one that claimed he
fought and suffered for the independence of Zimbabwe more than any other
Zimbabwean so he has to be president for life. Remember Ian Smith claimed he
fought for the independence of Rhodesia, too. But I guess he was delusional.

We admired this fellow Robert then, but not
now. Not because he has over stayed as president, but because his relevance was
then, not now. Some may disagree with me, but this is one fellow that nearly
brought Zimbabwe down to be a basket case. But thanks to the vibrancy and
functional literacy of Zimbabweans, they persevered and still do.

We seriously need to ask our president what
exactly he hopes to learn from this fellow that upholds visages of
dictatorship. Perhaps, it is to do with his admission that he does not have
enough wisdom, so he has to consult elders. But, surely Desmond Tutu or Uhuru
Kenyatta would be more appropriate.

Or is the insatiable hunger for political
hegemony the lessons he is getting from Mugabe? The pursuit of political
hegemony necessitates that one attracts every sundry of political opportunists
even if they disgusted one a minute ago, as long as they can help sustain one’s
dominance.

It surely does not make sense that a political
party in government that petitioned some parliamentary seats on the grounds of
electoral corruption, can today embrace the same persons it alleged are
corrupt. This is a party in government that even re-opened some closed
corruption cases against the very persons that are now being accepted into the party.

Is the, “Only
God who appointed me will remove me" mantra from Robert a lesson we
are witnessing as learnt? If not, how else can we understand the fact that the
return of hyenas does not seem to
worry our ‘corruption averse’ president?

Sorry! According to Dr Francis Manda, though offensive,
MP’s ditching their parties are like hyenas looking for fecal excreta. And who am
I not to quote a very eminent person on our political landscape. After all, Dr
Manda is a master in symbolic expression.

So for now, let us watch the hyena show. But be
heedful that, like I observed in “Of
hyenas and fecal matter”, the best I know about hyenas, is to run when one
is in sight. We, the voters, should always take to our heels when a hyena is in
sight! Let us not be prey to political hegemony.